So.. what are we all buying?

[MikeB]

I am opting for an Amiga-XE motherboard, as I would like to do performance tests between various software titles running with different specced CPUs.

But as a user I would probably have opted for a G4, the AmigaOne is afterall the first new Amiga motherboard in a decade, no need to get cheap about it.  :-D

I am sure there will be Altivec versions of software titles pretty soon. If you look at classic Amiga software and all the different CPU optimised versions out there, I have no reason to think this will not be the case for AmigaOS4 software as well.

@ quenthal

In general a 800 Mhz G4 is significantly faster than a 600 Mhz G3, even without software utilizing Altivec.

[MikeB]

@ olegil

According to benchmark tests performed on Mac hardware the G3/G4's integer performances (does not utilize Altivec) is basically the same at similar clock speeds.

However the floating point performance is roughly 30% better at the same clock speeds for the G4. (And of course there are big performance gains for Altivec optimised software.)

[MikeB]

@ olegil

Floating point performance should still be better for the G4, even with a G3 750FX at a much higher clock rate. Some official data from Motorola and IBM for some rough comparison:

------CPU----------------------------Spec95 (int)-Spec95 (fp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
G3 750FX @ 900 MHz--------------39.9 ---------21.1-------
G4 7451   @ 733 MHz----------------32.1 ---------23.9-------

The integer performance difference is about what you would expect, based on the higher G3 clock rate. Yet still the G4 is about 12% faster with regard to floating point performance.

My conclusion, even when taking out of account the very cool Velocity Engine, the G4 is a slightly better overall performing CPU than a G3 at the same clock rate.

[MikeB]

@ olegil

In this case the G4 is actually clocked faster, so it wins by 13%. Still it's not 30% like you claimed

Actually what I said in my initial posting was:

"G3/G4's integer performances (does not utilize Altivec) is basically the same at similar clock speeds." & "However the floating point performance is roughly 30% better at the same clock speeds for the G4. "

But I should note that for my initial posting  I wasn't referring to the official benchmarks provided by Motorola and IBM, which I however did  use for my previous posting within this thread!

The Altivec is actually more useful than a good FPU. Of course, the G4 has both

For almost all software the G4 will offer similar or higher performances as compared to a G3, at the same clock rate. And I agree software using the G4's vector unit will mostly greatly outperform similar software, running on a similar clocked G3s.  :-)